No More Dawn
Visual Sequencing Narrative | Creative Writing & Digital Illustration
2023
Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator
In a world where the sun mysteriously vanishes, one man’s routine walk home becomes the start of a surreal descent into chaos. As nature twists and the city spirals into panic, he’s forced to navigate a crumbling reality with no light, no contact, and no answers. Isolated and lost in a frozen landscape, he scavenges to survive — haunted by silence, shadows, and the eerie absence of morning. No More Dawn is an atmospheric journey through fear, loneliness, and the unraveling of the familiar, capturing the quiet terror of a world where day never comes. It is simply an artistic and experimental take on picture books.
Mood Mapping
Every project begins with deep research and visual exploration. In this case, I carefully curated 15 royalty-free images, sequenced to reflect the project’s core aesthetic, emotional tone, and color palette. It serves as a visual roadmap, setting the mood and guiding the creative direction from concept to execution.
Tone & Intuition
I selected a stark and minimal color palette to support the story’s dystopian tone and futuristic setting – centered around the concept of the sun vanishing. The deep black and crisp white create a high-contrast, almost clinical atmosphere, evoking emptiness and the absence of light. The desaturated navy adds a cold, technological edge, while the burnt orange acts as a fading echo of warmth and humanity. It is subtle but symbolic of the missing sun. Together, these colors reinforce the emotional gravity of the narrative.
Type Studies
The typography was chosen to reflect the stark, uneasy atmosphere of a dystopian future where the sun has vanished. Bold, geometric typefaces ground the design in a sense of rigidity and control, while monospaced and typewriter-inspired fonts introduce a mechanical, utilitarian edge—echoing themes of surveillance, isolation, and digital decay. The interplay between structured and distressed type mirrors the tension within the narrative, helping to visually communicate a world on the brink of collapse.
Finer Details
As part of the visual development for this project, I created a series of custom vector illustrations derived from select royalty-free images used in my book. These silhouettes, ranging from figures and streetlamps to industrial towers and radios, help reinforce the stark and dystopian tone of the narrative. By stripping the imagery down to minimal black-and-white forms, the illustrations mirror the story’s themes of isolation, surveillance, and vanishing light, while also maintaining a cohesive, futuristic visual language throughout the design.
Final Form
The final book design brings together all elements of the concept in a cohesive and visually striking format. Using a horizontal layout, the book emphasizes a cinematic flow that mirrors the eerie pacing of the narrative. The minimalistic color palette, custom vector illustrations, and sci-fi-inspired typography work in unison to create a clean yet unsettling atmosphere. Burnt orange accents punctuate the otherwise monochromatic pages, symbolizing the last remnants of sunlight. Every design decision was made to reflect the story’s central theme: a world grappling with the absence of the sun.
